Effects of intraspecific competition on size variation and reproductive allocation in a clonal plant

Abstract

Clonal plants grow in diameter rather than height, and therefore competition among genets is likely to be symmetric and to result in smaller variation in size of genets than in non‐clonal plants. Moreover, clonal plants can reproduce both sexually and vegetatively. We studied the effects of density on the size of rosettes and of clones, variation in the size of rosettes and of clones, and allocation to sexual and vegetative reproduction in the clonal herb Ranunculus reptans. We grew plants from an artificial population of R. reptans in 32 trays at two densities. After four months, differences in density were still apparent, although clones in the low‐density treatment had on average 155% more rosettes and 227% more rooted rosettes than clones in the high‐density treatment. The coefficient of variation of these measures of clone size was 15% and 83% higher, respectively, in the low‐density treatment. This indicates that intraspecific competition among clones of R. reptans is symmetric and increases the effective population size. Rooted rosettes were larger and varied more in size in the low‐density treatment. The relative allocation of the populations to sexual and to vegetative reproduction was 19% and 13% higher, respectively, in the high‐density treatment. Moreover, seeds produced in the high‐density treatment had a 24% higher mass and a 7% higher germination percentage. This suggests that with increasing density, allocation to sexual reproduction increases more than allocation to vegetative reproduction in R. reptans, which corresponds to the response of some other species with a spreading growth form but not of species with a compact growth form. We conclude that intraspecific competition is an important factor in the life‐history evolution of R. reptans because intraspecific competition affects its clonal life‐history traits and may affect evolutionary processes such as genetic drift and selection through its effect on the effective population size.